This invention relates to clothing hangers and, in particular, to clothing hangers with metal hooks and molded plastic bodies.
Plastic hangers with metal hooks are desirable for a number of reasons. The hooks can be made to be rotatable with respect to the plastic hanger body, so that the clothes can be displayed from front or side and the sales clerk can rotate the garment to display both front and back. The metal hooks are strong and capable of substantial abuse without breakage. Thus, the plastic hanger with a metal hook combines strength of metal where it is needed into the hook with lightweight, inexpensive plastic to provide the garment shaping body of the hanger body.
The metal hook is typically attached to the plastic hanger body by providing a vertical hole in the plastic body extending downwardly into the body. A transverse opening is provided through the body and intersecting the vertical hole such that the bottom end of the shank portion of the metal hook will extend into the opening after having been slidably inserted in the hole. The free end of the shank is then crimped by placing the hook and hanger body in a stamping press. The two dies come together and meet in the transverse opening to crimp the shank adjacent the end, forming a pair of diametrically positioned wings to prevent the hook from being withdrawn.
This arrangement requires several steps to complete insertion of hook in the hole, including accurately locating the assembled hook and hanger in the crimping equipment, actuating the equipment to form the crimp and removal of the finished assembly. The initial assembly of the hook and hanger body normally also requires the equipment to position the curved portion of the hook in the plane of the hanger body and to accurately locate the hook axially of the hole to be certain that the crimp is formed at the correct place in the shank. Even with the best high speed automated equipment, this is a time consuming, labor intensive operation. It also requires expensive precision equipment to be certain that each hanger and hook are accurately assembled and positioned when the crimping equipment is actuated. Failure to do so will result either in a faulty product or destruction of the hanger body because the dies will hit and crush the plastic body portion instead of passing through the transverse opening through the body and crimping the metal shank. Because of the number of steps involved and the nature of the product, the operating capacity of the best of automated assembly equipment for this product is quite limited. Thus, it is a significant cost factor in the manufacture of this type of hanger.